Article: KEF LS60 Wireless HiFi System

[ednaz]

On 5/16/2022 at 10:35 AM, firedog said:

I can think of a couple of reasons:

One, the 26hz is with a significant roll off.

Two, if you want to play music with very low bass as a fairly loud volume, the system bass limiter will kick in. The system is designed that way at higher volumes (loud, but not deafening) to protect the relatively small woofers that produce low bass with very long woofer extension. It will still sound ok, and probably good enough for most, but won't quite cut it for those that want top notch, natural sounding low bass reproduction at volume. For most music at most volumes it will sound fine. 

I can confirm that adding a sub can improve the sound of the other active system components by taking some weight off the built in woofers. When I added a sub to my LS50 wireless, it made a huge difference in how the lower midrange and mid midrange sounded. KEF's LFE connection takes a huge load off the main speakers. Striking enough that for a couple days I was switching back and forth between sub and no sub to listen harder. (and to kick myself for waiting over a year to try it.) When I added a sub to my LSX speakers, it was even more of a transformation. 

 

Adding a sub to passive speakers doesn't have that much of an effect unless you've got both sub and speakers wired through electronics to reduce the low frequency burden on the main speakers. 

[ednaz]

On 5/16/2022 at 3:39 PM, jeffhenning said:

It's based upon the fact that there are reviews of $500 USB audio cables, $2K power cables and things even more idiotic than those... and people give them credence.

 

If what you are espousing is not based on real science & measurements, it is pure junk.

 

The audio reviewing/journalistic industry, for the most part, is based upon imbeciles with no background in science publishing their opinions.

 

That is not my opinion. That is a fact.

 

You can love that.. or shove that! I don't care which you decide upon.

 

Anyone who doubts that peoples' hearing abilities vary significantly is just flat out belligerently ignorant. Why would hearing be any different than every other of the human senses? There are people who can taste a wine and tell you the grape variety, year, region, and often the vineyard of origin, where most people would be fortunate to get the grape variety right. (And some can tell a red from a white, and that's it.) No surprise - the number of taste buds on tongues, and ratio of different types of buds, varies wildly across the population, and the willingness to practice and learn to attune those taste buds varies even more wildly. There are people whose reaction times are 4-5x faster than the average person. In one part of their body, but not in the others. Some people can smell mercaptan, others can't. Genetics. Some people can smell a perfume and name all the scent components. Most of us just know there's perfume in the room. There are people who can look at a color patch and tell you which Pantone number they're looking at. 

 

And as to hearing. Some people have perfect pitch. I don't, I only have relative pitch. (You can look those up, Mr. Henning. But you won't.) With a little more ability - I can tell if an orchestra or musician is tuned to A 440 or A 432. My guess is Mr. Henning would not be capable of that. I can also tell you what kind of metal bell is on a trumpet or trombone when I hear it played. A lot of people can do that though, it's why you see whole orchestral brass sections playing identical instruments. It makes me a bit crazy hearing an orchestra that isn't that conscientious, the blend just isn't there. (Although if they're mixing red brass and silver bells, much harder to pick apart.) Many musicians can tell the sound differences between one piece and two piece bell construction, and have strong preferences. And you, Mr. Henning? At my advanced years, I can still hear the goddamn mosquito repellers that some businesses put up.

 

Some of the differences are genetic, some are epigenetic, some are talents (you're born with), some are skills (you can develop.)

 

And yet there's Mr. Henning, who holds out his inability to hear distinctions in sound waves as the superior definition of human auditory abilities. One wonders if he thinks his taste buds, eyes, nose, and central nervous system are also the acme of human achievement.

[ednaz]

On 5/19/2022 at 1:46 PM, firedog said:

And none of that means that you aren't susceptible to expectation bias when you listen to and compare audio equipment. So even if you have the best hearing, you can fool yourself.

Nope. And every person is susceptible to a hundred kinds of bias including bias about other peoples' bias. Which happens to be the most common bias - assuming that everyone else on the planet is no different from you.

 

If we weren't all significantly different from each other, we'd have been exterminated as a species through the inexorable process of inbreeding.
 

I've had a blast taking people who believed scientifically unsupported baloney like " peripheral vision perceives color" or "the way to respond fastest to a stimulus is to have it in the center of your vision" into tests of their personal ego-centric biases, and capturing the results on video. 

 

The whole madness of "anything I don't agree with has got to be manipulation by controlling powers" or "anything I don't agree with can't be true because I define human consciousness" or "anyone other than me is wrong because {fill in the blank reason} is the basis of why millions of people believe in election fraud (it's impossible anybody could disagree with my opinions), with zero tangible evidence, despite nearly $100MM being spent on looking for fraud and finding nothing.

 

As a species, we're on the decline. Because of ego driven ignorance.